Council Denies Banning Town Clerk

By Emma Kakololo WINDHOEK Rundu Town Council yesterday raised Cane against allegations made by its suspended Town Clerk, Lukas Muhepa, that it has banned him from its offices. Muhepa recently complained to this paper that the town council’s has taken a decision to forbid him from visiting their offices or to talk to employees. He said despite his suspension, he was still a client of the council and would continue to visit the offices to settle his monthly municipal bills. Muhepa claimed that his nightmare started when he went to the council to ask for his municipal statements last month, and was told not to go there anymore. “This was never indicated to me in my charge sheet. For me, I see that is not fair. The case is still with the lawyers and it’s been taken care of,” he stated, fingering the Chairperson of the Rundu Town Council Management Committee, Christophorus Kudumo, as the man behind the ban. “The chairman of the Management Committee of Rundu Town Council, Christoph Kudumo, had no right to ban me and to order people not to talk to me, as some of these people are my relatives. I was born in this region, some of them we are related to and we worked together and grew up together. We don’t know each other because we work together but because of our history,” he said further. Approached for comment yesterday, Kudumo rejected Muhepa’s claims stating that the council never took such a decision and that Muhepa was twisting the truth. He said council was absolutely certain that Muhepa was conducting secret meetings in their offices trying to incite workers to go against the council and only held a meeting with staff members informing them why they suspended Muhepa. “We were reliably informed that he wanted to organise some kind of resistance from our workers in order to support his suspension. One of the town engineers resigned and he together with Muhepa were having secret meetings with workers in our offices, trying to instigate them to go on strike and to reject council’s decisions,” he stated. “That was very dangerous and when I heard about it, I talked to the staff members and they informed him and he made his conclusion,” Kudumo said. “What we did was only to inform the staff why we suspended Muhepa,” he stressed. Kudumo said he only heard about the allegations when Muhepa’s wife telephoned him, swearing at him. “We are going to announce the date of his disciplinary hearing, and very soon the fate of Muhepa would be known,” he stated. Muhepa, who served the council for the past 13 years was suspended in March last year on a host of charges concerning alleged irregularities. His case has not been heard because of a conflict between the town council and the line ministry over the appointment of the chairperson of the disciplinary hearing.